Chancel Repair Liability

Chancel repair liability is a liability on some property owners in England and Wales to fund repairs to the chancel of their local medieval-founded Church of England parish church or Church in Wales church. This responsibility of owners of once-rectorial land (a rectory or glebe) can still be invoked by the church council of some parishes. In the vast majority of ecclesiastical parishes (into which all of England and Wales is split) chancel repair liability is not applicable. However it was brought into use for the first time in a few years in 2003 in a particularly lightly populated glebe. Andrew and Gail Wallbank received a demand for almost £100,000 to fund repairs of their ecclesiastical parish's medieval church. After a protracted legal battle, as they sought to challenge this ruling, the Law Lords found in favour of the Parochial Church council, leaving the Wallbanks with a £350,000 bill including legal costs.

St. John the Baptist church, Aston Cantlow's historic rectory was acquired by the Priors of Maxstoke in 1345 (which is a monastery, abbey, priory or college of Oxford or Cambridge) leaving a "discharged vicarage" (as the name for the living of the priest) and creating lay improprietors (lay rectors) of the glebe land - e.g. in 1848 this was the Earl of Abergavenny. He held the glebe land, in this case helpfully named Glebe Farm so was responsible for the chancel. Later buyers of this land remain liable.

Subsequent to this case, it is now best practice for new purchasers to be advised to request a check as to whether the local parish (one of the 15,000 ecclesiastical parishes into which all of England and Wales is split) includes such a church, and if so to take out chancel liability insurance. Unless such a check is made, homeowners who have lived in their current property since before 2003 are unlikely to be aware of their liability or to have insurance as chancel repair liability will not have been registered on their title register (database kept at the Land Registry) and may not have been researched by their conveyancers on moving in. If it was not noticed by solicitors then if the church enforces the liability across the affected land action against solicitors may be six-year time-barred.

Through provisions made under the power of the Land Registration Act 2002 the onus has been put on Parochial Church Councils to identify all affected land and register their interest before 13 October 2013; a process which some Parochial Church Councils are doing. After that date, new owners of land will only be bound by chancel repair liability where it is entered on the liable Title Register kept at the Land Registry database.